This is not my usual post style here at Twin Tree, but I was asked to contribute to a newsletter for a Ladies Group, one from a whole other state and made up of not a single lady I know, except the one who leads it, whom I met via a Pinterest art and crafts group. I feel led to share it here, as I feel God urging the message farther out. I hope it blesses someone today.
The Wrong Tragedy
Happy May, Ladies, and Happy Mother’s Day!
When your dear Ms. Linda asked me more than a month ago if I would help with this month’s newsletter, I was nervous. After all, I don’t work here, as they say — I’m not a member of your Ladies Group, I don’t even live in your state! I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. Then Ms. Linda told me, “there are no toes to step on. We’re desperate since Kaitlyn went off to college! It’s been a disaster for months!”
“Nobody ever asks me to write on purpose. I’m all in,” I e-mailed back, grateful to be trusted with a task so special to Ms. Linda’s heart.
That lady loves you all deeply, and with this going out on Mother’s Day, I can’t help but use this space to express to her how lucky we all are, even those of us who just know her from craft spaces online, but especially those of you who are a part of her daily life, how much we need and appreciate her mothering. Thank you, Ms. Linda. You are a true blessing, and you are so very loved.
It’s been a long time since I’ve formatted a newsletter or written anything for the consumption of anyone’s eyes but God’s and my own, and I get why nobody is thrilled to take on the challenge. It’s not easy, but a worthy challenge, and I appreciate that. But, even when I got on board and started editing the columns many of you had sent in, for the longest time I couldn’t decide whether to share an editorial about the end times hype (which I don’t think is hype at all, how much more obvious can it get that we are nearing Daniel’s seventieth week?), or a piece about mothers and motherhood, or maybe encouragement about dealing with grief or times of difficulty in life.
It turns out the answer was none of those. God has led me to share a blunt message with you all today, but I believe sometimes that’s what is needed — especially when we are taking Him for granted, and we all have at some time or another. He started guiding me about this topic a few weeks ago, and I’ve sat with it and prayed over it ever since. I pray as I write this that you will receive it for His glory, and that in this editorial, we all find ourselves seeing and gleaning fruit for our lives, provided by His grace.
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People think they know tragedy when they see it, but the real tragedy in life is not what most people would consider it to be. I’ve experienced quite a bit of grief and loss in my life, sat with a lot of sickness and dying, watched people suffer unimaginable things while cleaning up the blood and vomit and groaning that came along with it… but none of it was a real tragedy.
Even the youngest one, at age 58 — they’d all lived good lives. They’d experienced their share of both difficulty and joy. And, unexpectedly, as disease always is, they’d gotten sick. And throughout every caregiving experience, even in the hardest moments, even with my mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s, I watched them all talk more about what they were grateful for than what they were suffering, and fearing, and dreading.
In that process, I learned a lot from them. I learned to see and hear God. I struggled to rely on Him, to truly trust Him, and to put Him first, but those experiences gave me more than enough opportunity to learn. He never gave up on me, no matter how much I wondered if I’d given up on Him, and even believed I had. Through those experiences I learned a lot about how to appreciate what I have before I lose it; and even myself, before I lose my own body. I started to get a picture of what real suffering was, and it was never really the physical struggle or pain.
God gave me his reason for leading me to this topic earlier today, as I read a story about two elderly ladies, Ruby and Laura. They were life long friends on a mission trip. Two women nearly in their 80s, who had given the last 20 years of their lives solely to the service of others. They’d given their whole lives, but certainly the entirety of those last twenty years, to the devotion of one idea: Jesus Christ, magnified among the poor and the sick, in the hardest places. Their purpose had been to save others.
Instead, they had perished. They were killed while on what would be their final mission trip. They died together, in a tragedy. At least, the article framed it that way, and went on at length about what a tragic tragedy it had been. I am familiar with hearts like those of Ruby and Laura, and I can promise you, this is not a tragedy. I guarantee you those women did not die in vain, and when they met Jesus they had not a single regret.
If you want to understand true tragedy, keep reading, because what comes next will, I hope, offer clarity on a different perspective. I will preface by saying that it all comes down to the depth of your humility and what you truly love, and I ask that you keep that in mind as you continue reading, because we all know that, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” — Matthew 6:21
Not long before God presented me with the story about Ruby and Laura on their mission trip, I’d read another article. It was in the Reader’s Digest, I think. Or maybe an AARP magazine. I was in a doctor’s office (I’d had my own unexpected health scare earlier this year, so I was no stranger to the feeling that life can turn on a dime), trying to distract myself from my own NDE, health diagnosis and anxiety. In bold, oversized letters the header seemed to scream at me: “Start Now, Retire Early!”
“Oh boy!” I thought. “It’s already too late!” as I chuckled sarcastically inside. And as that thought began to settle in my mind, God tapped on my heart and whispered, “hey… pssst. Not so fast, pay attention to your heart and keep reading.” So, I wipe the smirk off my face and did just that.
This story went on to describe how this couple had taken an early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast before they were 60. Now they live in Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot cabin cruiser, play softball and bridge, enjoy seafood, and collect shells.
Now that’s a tragedy. Why, you might ask? It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it! It’s a far worse tragedy than those two ladies who found themselves at the end of their lives with the meaning of it being within them, more than what was external. The worst tragedy about this particular story is that there are people in this country spending billions of dollars to get you to buy that story as success.
Don’t buy it. With all my heart, I plead with you. Don’t buy that dream. The modern American dream is not the righteous American Dream. It’s not the American Dream of old. It is an American Dream that has been stitched together by devils and darkness, stripped of true and any holy meaning, and tagged with dollar signs and bright green envy.
It’s not just a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells. It’s selling your soul to materialism and temporary pleasure as the whole last chapter of your life, before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did with it. Imagine it:
“Here it is, Lord. My shell collection. And look at my boat. Look at my clothes, God. Look at my great car, and my jewelry, look at my condo and all my assets! Look how healthy I am thanks to all the seafood I enjoyed! And I got to enjoy it for years, Lord, because I worked myself nearly to death so I could retire early! Oh, but I didn’t forget that it was all ‘Your blessing!’ Thank you for that great life, Lord!”
Do you see where I am going, here? Yes. God has blessed us. And maybe we have worked incredibly hard for our successes. Maybe they weren’t without obstacles, maybe we do feel a bit entitled to those years of carefree ease. But if we waste our lives with material focus, how thankful are we, really?
Don’t waste your life. Don’t waste it. None of that stuff matters.
Sure, a nice home is important, but not if it’s not filled with love. A good car is important if you need to get somewhere, but how important is it to get somewhere that leaves you empty and disconnected from what can fill you? What good is a dream that you have to kill your body and mind to achieve, that you then take all your success from achieving it and hand it over to a bunch of consumerism that leaves you utterly desolate in the areas that are going to matter when you meet Jesus face to face one day?
God’s dreams are bigger than the modern American dream. Life should mean more than that to anyone who loves Him, or anyone besides themselves. It should mean more to us than appearances and conveniences. It should mean gratitude, humility, a pure heart, temperance, grace, and obedience to Him, not the masters of this earthly world. Would you rather meet Jesus face to face with that, or your shell collection?
I encourage you today, check in with your heart. Check in with your true desires, with what you cherish, with what you project into the world, and with what your motives are for all of those things. Are they for you, or are they for the glory of God who blessed you with them? Are they for the highest good of all, or just for yourself?
Either way, your answers are between you and God, and I pray that you’ll find reconciliation with Him if you find you’ve lost it, and gratitude that even if you have, He has never left you, and never will. That is what He reminded me, and wanted me to share with you.
Have a wonderful May, and please, let the following Scripture inspire and guide your heart this month.
CG, May 2026
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If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
— 1 Corinthians 13
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